First laser oscillation and broad tunability of 1 at. % Yb-doped Sc2O3 and Lu2O3 ceramics

We report the first oscillation achieved on 1 at: % Yb-doped Sc2O3 and Lu2O3 ceramics under quasi-CW pumping at 968nm. With Sc2O3 we measured a maximum output power of 2: 2W with a slope efficiency of 59% at 1040: 5nm. Comparable results are obtained with Lu2O3 at 1032: 5nm, i.e., 1:8W with a corresponding slope of 45%, while at 1078nm we measured 1: 5W with 34% of slope efficiency. Finally, we present the range of tunability, which exceeds 41nm for both samples. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first measurements reported in literature either in terms of laser emission or continuous tunability range achieved with 1 at: % doping level. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America